


Image Object (Angles of Refraction Mix)

by Quinara



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Remix, season: b7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:52:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinara/pseuds/Quinara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a mirror in the basement, and it'll turn you around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Image Object (Angles of Refraction Mix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Through the Looking Glass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3511) by [Ruuger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger). 



> A missing scene from Selfless this time!

There’s a mirror in the basement. Every time Buffy looks for Spike it’s what she finds instead, at first: the long slim stretch of glass reflecting dust, old books and stacks of shelves. (For a school that was built brand new, there’s a hell of a lot of old one still taking up space.)

Something about the way the mirror angles is strange, so it always seems to turn Buffy’s steps in the direction opposite where she means to walk – she blames it for confusing her route, because the paths can’t _really_ change, but she knows she should pay less attention to her feet. And worry less that she’s come down to talk to him again.

When she’s far enough away, or sometimes not so far, it shows her face, and it’s never the face that Buffy means to show that day.

The Monday when Willow goes back to college, she comes up to the mirror yet again. The Buffy there inside is smiling, not really with her mouth (for Buffy’s lips are straight) but with her eyes and air; she’s dressed entirely in black, but still exudes kindness and understanding. Far too much.

“You think you’ve closed your heart to him,” she almost hears her image say, can almost see it form the words. “But really you’re nothing but a weak girl, softened by sympathy for a monster who did you wrong. A victim. Pathetic.”

Shivering with the fear of it, Buffy comes closer – the image won’t change. Closer still, and the softer she becomes, even as she scrutinises smudges in her make-up.

Eventually she’s kneeling in the dust, staring in. With two fingers she’s tracing the planes of her face, the frail curves of her chin and cheek, the gentle flow of hair around her face, and finds herself transfixed by the shining weakness of her eyes. She can remember how she felt, how she must have looked, when she found Spike for the first time. The shock of it brought tears to her eyes, froze her silent and confused and weak, only to be roused back to her senses when the ruder him re-emerged. No soul could bury that.

Her softer self is locked inside of her; she remembers locking it away. She cannot look like this. “It’s not true,” she whispers, covering the subtle O her lips form in the image. _I’m in control of me._ And yet her eyes continue to glisten, staring back at her.

Carefully Buffy raises a hand to her hair, pulling it back off her face and tying it away. _Better, but still too soft; still too soft._ It’s not enough, so then she takes the lock that dares to break the line between her forehead and her ear and starts to plait it, stretching out the curl to cut away from her.

As her fingers work the strands, she can see her eyes grow harder, settling slowly into a glare. It’s comforting. The softness leaves with every flick of her fingers, but she can’t take risks, not with Spike, not with herself, so as she plaits and tucks the hair away she goes beyond how she thought she looked to something else. Something more. Resolute, she recalls her ire and breathes it with every breath.


End file.
